On Ted Nugent and Media Hypocrites

By
Bernard Goldberg

JewishWorldReview.com |
Ted Nugent, the gun-totting rocker with a big mouth, has done it again. His latest rant, not surprisingly, is about his favorite target, Barack Obama. This is what he recently told guns.com:

Barack Obama is a "Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel" and a "gangster."

Even if you ignore the communist and gangster rhetoric, Nugent called the president of this country a "subhuman mongrel"  the same language, by the way, that Hitler used on the Jews and that slaveholders used to describe their slaves.

So it's no surprise that liberals in the media jumped on the remark, noting that Nugent has been out campaigning for likely Republican nominee for governor of Texas, state Attorney General Greg Abbott.

On CNN, Wolf Blitzer said, "Nugent's presence hit a sour note with a lot of people. They say Texans deserve better than a candidate who would align himself with someone like Nugent who offered a hate-filled assessment of the president. Shockingly, Abbott's campaign brushed aside the criticism, saying they value Nugent's commitment to the Second Amendment."

This prompted Newt Gingrich, who's also on CNN, to complain about the media double standard. "I always love selective media outrage. As the party of Hollywood, the Democrats have lots of donors and supporters who say truly stupid things. Truly outrageous things."

Newt is right. There is a double standard. But he left out the most important part: Conservatives in the media are just as guilty.

Here's how it works: If a conservative like Sarah Palin, is slimed by a liberal like Bill Maher conservatives are outraged and liberals couldn't care less. But when a liberal, like Barack Obama is slimed as a "subhuman mongrel," liberals are outraged and conservatives in the media pretty much ignore the story. Rule #1: Don't hold a member of your team accountable  it might give ammo to the enemy.

So when it comes to moral outrage, forgive me, neither liberals nor conservatives in the media have even an ounce of credibility.

As for Nugent, his latest comments are hardly his first. He once went on stage, decked out in his trademark camouflage, toting two machine guns, and told the crowd: "Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun." And then this, about another Nugent enemy: "Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these [machine guns] into the sunset, you worthless bitch."

So how did family values media conservatives respond  those conservatives who tell us they care deeply about civility and decency in our culture? Here's how: They continued to have him on as their guest. They continued treating him as a good guy. And why not? He's their pal. He's a real conservative. And he loves guns, too. What a guy!

And while I'm no fan of Ted Nugent, these media hacks really turn my stomach.

To their credit a few prominent Republicans said Nugent was way off base. Texas Governor Rick Perry said, "I got a problem calling the president a mongrel. I do have a problem with that."

And Rand Paul, who has presidential aspirations, went further, tweeting, "Ted Nugent's derogatory description of President Obama is offensive and has no place in politics. He should apologize."

After that, Nugent did apologize, sort of. "I do apologizenot necessarily to the Presidentbut on behalf of much better men than myself." He calls the President of the United States a "subhuman mongrel" and apologizes "not necessarily to the president."

If Ted Nugent is sorry about anything, it's only that he put Greg Abbott, the conservative Republican who wants to be governor of Texas, in a bad spot. After one of his rallies, Abbot told reporters, "I don't know what he [Nugent] may have said or done in his background. What I do know is Ted Nugent stands for the Constitution. He stands against the federal government overreaching and doing what they are doing to harm Texas."

But when he couldn't put out the fire his pal Ted Nugent started, Abbott changed his tune. "This is not the kind of language I would use or endorse in any way," he said before adding: "It's time to move beyond this."

Greg Abbott may be able to move beyond this and win the election, but no one will confuse him with a profile in courage. And the same goes for Nugent's pathetic enablers in the conservative media.

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JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.